Mario Savio: Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964.

We have an autocracy which runs this university. It's managed. We asked the
following: if President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of
the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public
statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning
liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a
firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?"
That's the answer! Now, I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the Board
of Regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the
manager, then I'll tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees, and
we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw material[s] that don't mean to
have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean
to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the
government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're
human beings!

[Applause]

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively
take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the
wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.
And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it,
that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!